A C Perch's

Yesterday we got together with some friends, M&C. For those of you who have been here for a while, these are the same people that we went to visit in Paris last spring. They’ve moved home to Denmark again now, and M has become interested in green tea. She had bought a sencha from a shop near where she lives, but didn’t like it very much. (Apparently the man in the shop was also rather weird. When asked what he would recommend, he said, ‘nothing, because taste is individual.’ That’s… not very helpful.)

Anyway, the boyfriend is quite fond of this sencha so we started out with a cup of that, and M quite liked it and especially the typically sencha radioactive colour. Turns out she didn’t know that she wasn’t supposed to use boiling water like she normally would (Again, man in shop, when dealing with an obvious newbie, it’s a good idea to mention this!) so it had turned all bitter and weird on her.

I would say this one was quite mild. It wasn’t brewed by me, however, and that may account for some differences. I wasn’t actually looking while it was being prepared, so I don’t know for certain, but I have a strong suspicion that the boyfriend and I use very different leaf to water ratios. We definitely use very different steep times. I’m borderline gongfu these days with a LOT of leaf and no more than a minute on the first steep, where he’s more traditional in his usage of leaf and typically use about four-five minutes steeping. So yes, I would very likely have prepared it differently.

As it was, however, I found it very mild in flavour. The colour was very clear and glowing in the dark, and the aroma was quite butter-y. The tea itself was super-smooth with hints of dark green but not so much of the spinach and boiled broccoli-ish notes as I have come to associate with Sencha. (I’m actually drinking a Sencha now that Auggy shared with me, and I’m having the hardest time not to let that influence my post about this one)

I would have brewed it stronger myself and tried to find some more forcefulness in the flavour. It seemed a little timid and shy to me as it was, but it was an okay tea.

I’m so tired of drinking nothing but Pickwick or Lipton when I’m at my parent’s house. Recently they’ve had Twinings which is a step up. A very small step, granted, but still up. So for Christmas 2010 I decided to do the sort of thing I hate and give someone else something that I was interested in rather than something they were interested in. I bought some free flow pyramid bags (because I know better than to throw loose tea at someone who only ever have a cup once in a blue moon anyway) from A C Perch’s, stuffed as many as I could fit inside a 250g tin from same and wrapped it for her. In my defence it wasn’t her only present, I also got her something from the Body Shop. Further in my defence, she had bought me a tea light holder. AGAIN! I counted them all yesterday. I now have in my possession 16 tea light holders. And I never light candles, tea lights or otherwise.

Those bags come in boxes of 30 and I wanted there to be something to choose from, so I got two different boxes. I could have got one of the sampler-y boxes they had with four or five different kinds in it, but I liked these better. This one and the breakfast blend. They’re classic basic teas without a ton of flavouring and stuff.

Anyway, that left me with a total of 60 teabags. In case you haven’t tried it yourself, that does NOT fit inside a 250g tin. So I stuffed as many in the tin as I could and kept the rest in the boxes and just gave her the tin. If she founded she didn’t really like these I saw no reason to saddle her with two whole boxes of them. I’ve told her I’ve got the rest and she can have those as well if she wishes.

Which she does, I’ve decided, because later that Christmas my father asked me, no ordered me to get some tea that I could have at their place because he was tired of giving me that cheap stuff knowing that it was a lower quality than I would ever buy for myself. He despises tea, thinking it one of the most vile substances on the planet next after bananas, but he’s into whisky (which I think is absolutely horrid and disgusting) so although neither of us can have the others’ drink of interest without pulling faces, we understand each other perfectly.

So I’ll bring the rest of these boxes up next time I see them. (I have considered doing something like that before, but never did. I can do it now because I’ve been told to, but otherwise I was raised to take what I was offered when a guest in someone’s house and not make a lot of unnecessary dietary demands. So everybody in my family knows it’s not what I drink at home when they give me a cheap teabag because that’s what they have, and I never complain about what they give me.)

In the meantime, I’ve nicked one.

This one I included because I expected it to be similar to my beloved Tan Yang Te Ji (♥), and I stared myself so blind on that fact that it wasn’t until I was asked about the Paklum (or in English apparently Packlon) was that I realised that it was a blend. It has white tea in it, supposedly the Paklum. What is Paklum? I’ve never heard of that before. My initial guess would be some sort of flowery scented something, but I’m assuming it must be the white tea in question. Paklum. News to me. Consulting the literature I can’t find anything about it, but according to the Google results I get it is indeed the white element.

Obviously this means that contrary to what I was expecting this is in fact nothing at all like the Tan Yang that I was expecting it to be. The smoky element is very very light, almost non-existant unless you know precisely what to search for, and the Paklum is giving the whole thing a floraly scented note.

It’s got a spicy sort of note that I recognise from the Tan Yang, but it’s much more obvious here. It’s more like the main note of it all here, along with the floral note, and I miss the deeper notes of cocoa and smoke and oranges. It has the grainy rye-y note as it should, but it seems thinner here. A bit diluted.

All in all, it’s not a bad blend. I could have lived without the white addition, but it’s infinitely better than whatever artificially flavoured stuff Pickwick can come up with. I wouldn’t buy huge amounts of this for myself at home, but it’s definitely good enough for having when visiting my parents.

The Final Sipdown: Day 6
Decupboarding Total: 10

Apparently it is BOP day at my house. The vendor notes say goes well with milk so you can bet I’ll be putting some in. Hopefully it will stand up better than this morning’s Uptons EG FBOP. Just to be difficult, I added a touch of sugar, too. I need tea-cuddles at the moment. I’m exhausted.

The smell certainly is promising. Thick and chewy and honey-malty. And the taste, oh yeah, that is nice. I can tell I’ve added milk to it, but the tea isn’t covered up like (ahem) some teas I might mention that I had this morning. It’s not an overly complex tea but I needed something comforting and relaxing and this definitely qualifies. It’s thick and a little textured feeling in my mouth and has a nice nutty/malty/sweet taste going on that is very cuddly. Yay for comfort teas! This plus a kitty napping on my lap have me well on the way to feeling rejuvinated and perky again!

Thanks to Angrboda for the chance to try this!

Ah pink tea! The tea that almost wasn’t because I had a heck of a time getting the lid pried off the tin.

Actually this is inspired by the fact that A C Perch’s wrote in their newsletter today that they have a new rooibos which is flavoured with rhubarb. Now, admittedly I don’t much care for rooibos, as in not at all, but I can’t for the life of me imagine those two flavours together. I may have to push it on the boyfriend so that I can get an opinion on the matter. Although he may find the rhubarb flavour rather too girly…

Not that rhubarb is really a girly flavour in and off itself but in this green tea, it’s turned into something uber-girly. Pink and fluffy and reminding me of bubblegum.

I actually used too much leaf for this pot because I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing, so here I don’t seem to have quite as much pinkness as I remembered it having, but there is a good deal of the green tea shining through. Which would have been nice if it hadn’t been for the fact that it’s also a little harsh from the fact that there is rather too much leaf in there. Oh well.

Anyway, it’s still a quite nice cup for those uber-girly moments. It’s just not one I really feel like having very often.

Today’s tea is an inspired one. I ordered new tea for work the other day, but silly me forgot to consider the delivery address. So now I’ve got a big package to pick up from the post office on wednesday (having given up on the stupid package pick up place that keeps displacing my parcels), all of which I’ll have to carry with me into work on thursday. Instead of just having the silly thing delivered directly to work! Oh well, I can steal a few samples of the leaves, I guess.

Anyway, the reason this one is inspired is because one of the new work teas is one that has nothing in common with this one except the brand, but I’m imagining it to have the same sort of creamy-sweet quality as this one does.

I’ve even managed to make it a pretty good cup today, which is good seeing as this seems to be one of those teas that I end up neglecting without meaning to. It’s so summerly and nice, I really ought to have it more often. It reminds me of visiting the boyfriend’s family and having rhubarb crumble with custard. In spite of the fact that the rhubarb is sort of not really coming out clearly in this cup. Which doesn’t really add up with it being a pretty good cup today, but there you are. I never claimed to be logical or consistent.

I just really like this. It tastes pink and girly, and I suspect that the boyfriend would dislike it on principle.

It’s been a long time since I last had any of this one. Even longer since I posted about it. Smelling the tin now I wonder why.

Oh, the sweet creamy aroma, accentuated by a sharp sting of acidic rhubarb! I can’t even begin to describe how awesome these leaves smell. Like a sinfully sweet dessert, but with tartness that makes you want to come back for more. And more. And more. And more. All of this in combination with the standard notes of sencha.

Once it has finished steeping and a cup has been poured, take a moment to revel in this aroma once more. It’s even better when it’s a ‘wet’ smell rather than a ‘dry’ smell. Everything seems to flow together more. (Weirdly though, the aroma of it is sort of purple-ish… Can’t really see the connection there, but the old brain is a strange place.)

Sadly though, the flavour of it doesn’t really live up to the aroma. It’s good and the flavouring is subtle, which I like. But the aroma leads me to believe that there should be so much more. It’s an aroma – flavour mismatch as far as the strength is concerned.

As far as the actual flavour however, it’s very close to the aroma. (Still somewhat purple-ish). Primarily sencha flavours, but rhubarb as a close second. Then at the bottom of the flavour there’s the creamyness along with something every so slightly floral. There are rose petals in the leaves, though, so that’s probably them making an appearance.

Very nice, but not one I feel like having often enough that I think it should have more points than this or that I think I might be restocking. It is, however, very much a flavoured green variant that I would encourage people to give a try.

Of such an enormous order I made recently there are surprisingly few new things for me to try. Only three new things and this is one of them. Of course there will possibly be two more things later on but those are not for me really.

So three new things and this is the only untried one left. Then I’ve got some untried stuff from the latest package from Wombatgirl and I think one or two untried ones from Auggy, although I’ve messed the latter up a bit, so I’d have to check there.

Anyway the aroma is very sencha-y here and it’s got a sweetly fruity additional note to it. It’s sort of bubble-gum-y and only slightly like rhubarb.

The flavour is very rhubarb-y though and also very sencha-y. I steeped a little too long so it’s quite strong, but it’s really very much like I had expected it to be. I really do like the combination of rhubarb and sencha. I think they suit each other nicely while still somehow managing to be very much in contrast with each other.

I don’t see this is a tea I’ll be drinking a lot but it’s definitely one I’m going to enjoy when I do have it. Very nice indeed.

This one was next in the cold brew experiment. It worked out relatively well. The bananas are coming out a whole lot when brewed cold, and I’m not entirely certain that this works to the tea’s advantage. I don’t think there will be more than one pitcher of this. While it is more refreshing this way, it just appeals to me more when it’s hot.

And while I have your attention anyway, Steepsterites, may I draw your attention to this picture? The Tea Corner has been shelved. Er… I mean, there are shelves in the Tea Corner.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/NNX4gWal5i0uUiCC-eiIUOnJOfe6_LFJWQwI2FsYNwU?feat=directlink
Yes, that’s the Bits’n’Bops Basket on the table there. I’m sure you can understand why it’s currently difficult for me to remember where it all came from although it was very nice of the people who contributed to filling it. A blanket thank you to all those who were or have been previously involved.

Well… The banana and melon flavourings are coming out very nicely here.

It’s just that underneath it the white tea is shouting insults at me and accusations of mistreatment… I may have been slightly distracted while making this cup. In my defence I was exploring Standard Panel storage options, although without finding anything super-useful.

This cup, though… Nah, I think we’ll start over from the top.

This tea has been very carefully selected as one of the very most delicate sorts of tea I own, and I’ll tell you why.

Come time for cooking dinner, I discovered that I had no tap water. A little investigation told me that this was because it had been turned off so that they could fix a leaky pipe somewhere and that we should not expect to have running water again until 2.30 as the earliest. 2.30 was three hours gone by the time I discovered this, so who knew when there might be tap water again? So I waited a little while for the water to return while bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t cook dinner without water and that this fact made three times as hungry as I was to begin with. At least.

Then I realised that if I had to use the bathroom, I wouldn’t be able to wash my hands after. Then I decided to make a mad dash to the nearest grocery store for some bottled water rather than wait it out. You know, just in case.

Of course after having returned with my loot, the tap water has been turned on again (and it’s a lovely yellow too), but at least now I can do things without having to wait for all the yellowness to be gone.

Seeing as I actually had bottled water in the house now, I decided to see if I could tell any difference in tea making as opposed to my regular tap water. Hence making the most delicate tea I could find in my cupboard. I do have a plain Pai Mu Tan also, but that one’s getting rather on in age, so I figured a fresher one would be a better test subject, even if it did have a ton of fruit in it.

And I only just now realised that I took the dream tea when I meant to take the temple tea. Oh well, they have the same base, so same difference in this instance.

So! Interesting experiment ahead! Can I make out a difference between my tap water and this bottled stuff that cost money and didn’t come out of the faucet for next-to-free?

No.

NaNo isn’t going so well today. Oh the words are coming but my characters have suddenly come over all religious-like. I HATE it when people get religious at me in real life, and I CERTAINLY don’t want a bunch of born-again christians in my story, but apparently writing certain things will have repercussions.

So I’m taking another break while trying to sort out how to get around that one without the whole thing turning into some something so un-me it’s ridiculous.

This combined with a serious craving for sweets which started with the first cup of the white temple tea… So fight fire with fire. Or something.

This one is also bought based on Rijje liking it and I ended up taking it because even if I didn’t like it, send to her, good home, and so on and so forth.

There aren’t any fruit chunks in it, but there are some nice purple flowers and it’s scented with melons and bananas. If you know this you can easily identify the aroma of the dry leaves as a mixture of these to fruits. If you don’t know this, it’s probably a bit more tricky. The jury is still out on whether or not it smells good or if it’s just horribly sickly cloying.

It does make me want to eat a banana, though.

After steeping it smells hugely of bananas! And not much else, really. This is 100% Bananaland. Thankfully the flavour is a little more controlled. Like with the white temple, the nuttyness of the white tea is coming through wonderfully and then the whole thing is wrapped around with banana flavour. It tastes exactly like I imagined it would.

The funny thing is I’m not getting bananas and melons at the same time here. At first it’s bananas but then as I’m about to swallow it morphs and it’s only melons. Isn’t that odd?

You could probably steep this a few times easily, but it’s really very much a one-cup deal. One is enough. More than that and it would start to taste really horrible, I think.

Once again I’m going to put myself pretty close to Rijje’s score and keep it myself.

Now, my little NaNo characters. Shape up or ship out! rolls up sleeves and cracks knuckles

GOSH! This stuff coldbrewed? Awesometastic, I swear! Wow. It’s all tropical and sweet and with a ton of papaya and pineapple coming through. Unlike the white dream tea from the same company, this one totally wins by being cold brewed. And it was pretty tasty to begin with. I might be considering wether the Standard Panel should contain some seasonal standards as well.

I had this at 93 points before so it was already pretty high up, but this cold brewing turned out so awesome that I’m adjusting it further upwards.

I’m probably going to be a little scarce for a couple of days. Two new kittens, sisters Charm and Luna age 13 weeks, in the house (yay kitties) that we just brought home yesterday. They are so sweet and exploring the house and very distracting from serious business things such as tea. My room is being investigated… wait, now they left. They are so cute I could just explode!

Gosh. Seem to have managed to scald these leaves a bit.

The tea is still fairly nice, but there’s a certain sharpness and bite to the flavour that wasn’t there before. And frankly wasn’t supposed to be there either. It’s like if you take a sip it’s got tiny little needles in it.

I haven’t ruined it. It’s definitely still drinkable but it’s just a little bit off the spot.

This one is from my latest A C Perch’s order which I received yesterday. Yes, the one with the enormous box. I’ve been eyeing it for a while because Rijje posted about it and it being a favourite of hers, and although I must admit to there being some sceptism mixed in with the fascination here, I decided to just go ahead and try it out. I’d probably do that sooner or later anyway, so why not just get it over with? And then I decided that if I didn’t like it, it wouldn’t really be such a bad thing anyway, because I could always ship it off to Greenland where I knew it would get a good home.

This being settled, I felt much better about making the order, and now it’s time to see if the white tropical explosion from 52teas is just a freak incident or if I actually really do enjoy tropical white blends as much as I think I do.

The leaves definitely smell strongly tropical. It’s more like sniffing at the contents of a snack bag of dried fruit than it is sniffing at tea leaves. Making a difference from the 52teas blend, this one doesn’t have coconut in it, which I take as a good sign as coconut in tea is very touch and go for me. Sometimes I think it works. Most of the time it just gets cloying. The pineapple is really strong here, as are the strawberries, and again, as I saw with the raspberry oolong, there are generous amounts of fruit chunks in here, and they’re big too.

After steeping the aroma is more or less the same but without that harshness that dried fruit can have. It smells warm and soft and very fruity, and it’s got an honey-golden colour in the cup. It doesn’t actually remind me that much of the aforementioned white explosion anymore, though, apart from both of them being white blends with tropical fruit. And based on the same type white I think if memory serves me right.

I’m surprised at the level of astringency here. It’s not super-astringent to the point where it becomes unpleasant, just nicely so. Initially I get the flavour of the white tea and not much of the fruit. The characteristic note of walnuts is coming through loud and clear. Then there’s a sweet pang of tropical fruit behind it and mostly on the swallow. If I keep it in my mouth a little longer before swallowing the tropical flavours really expand in the mouth and come out in a sweet fruity pleasantness. At this point is rather like the white explosion again, only a bit less explode-y and without the coconut. This is the more subdued version, the calmer, less impatiently enthusiastic variation of the tropical white.

I can’t get the tropical explosion again although I love it, unless Frank decides to make a new batch, but right now that’s not quite as big a catastrophe as before, because this is most definitely a very worthy substitute. Perhaps even a little better for the lack of the coconut.

Sorry, Rijje. I’m keeping this one, but thank you very much for the inspiration to try it. :)

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss For sending me some of this tea to try!

This is really good. Sweet, buttery, with a clean taste. I brewed it in my Kati tumbler, but, I think next time I’ll brew it in my gaiwan.

A lovely, lovely tea!

You know how everyone keeps saying that “this puerh tastes like fish tank, but in a good way” or “this tastes like dirt, but in a good way”.

Well, this tastes like salty, slightly off butter, but in a good way. Vegetially sweet smelling, but not sweet tasting at all.

I’m not thrilled with this tea, but I could see where green tea lovers would really love it.

Thanks for the tea Angrboda, this was good to try.

This is what I’m having at work, I think I’ve mentioned that before.

I’m sharing it with my boss and usually we take turns buying milk for it. I don’t usually take milk in tea, but while I rarely do it at home, I do think a little milk really suits a lot of Assams. But anyway, she was on vacation for the last week and a half so I’ve been all alone with the tea. Once I ran out of milk, I did buy a new half liter, but forgot to bring it, so I was just drinking it plain.

Lately I’ve found a lot of raisins in Assam. It’s funny really how I’m finally beginning to learn to spot those typical flavours. It’s taken me ages. I’d find them in each individual tea, but it’s only just in the last year or so that I’m learning to really associate a specific region with a specific flavour profile. It makes it so much easier to work out what to expect from a new one.

So anyway, raisins. And also some sweetness. Some would say malty sweetness, and to a certain degree I agree with that, but sometimes I think it’s more along the lines of honey.

The reason I’m posting about this one now is that yesterday at work I had an experience that was much like what I imagine it feels like to have succeeded in making Jackee Muntz go all caramel-y. The last half of the cup, cooled to just the right temperature was pure honey. It felt thick in the mouth even. An intense and dark honey with a little black tea around it.

It was UH-MAY-ZING!

And this is the reason why I’m giving the rating of this one a few more points.

I reckon this is a fairly good leaf grade. Obviously it’s not The Best Ever out there, but it’s not just an OP either. Funny that this, and not the FTGFOP should turn out to be something coming very very close to being My Perfect Assam. Even when I don’t get it to be so utterly honey-y.

I wish I knew what I’d done to achieve that though. I have some other good Assams in my possession at the moment and I’ll get through those first, but once they’re gone, I may very well just order some of this for at home as well as work.

Our new tea at work, my colleague and me.

We generally have an Assam with plenty of milk when we go to our favourite cafe for our little ‘afternoon meetings’ now and then. It’s about the only instance I take milk in my tea by default. Most of the time I prefer without.

So after the fiasco that was the Taiwanese oolong of boringness, we decided to go back to something thoroughtly tried and tested. We even bought a small carton of milk for it too.

I tried a little of it without additives first, and unlike aforementioned oolong of boringness I was quite pleased with what I got.

The aroma is strong on the malty sweetness. There’s a little oakyness too but not very much. Mostly it’s just a molasses-y sweet general tea aroma.

There is a good deal of body in the flavour, but it still seems quite mild and smooth. Mild here does not equal delicate or weak. Just sort of… mild. You know?

It’s still quite sweet with a touch of astringency on the finish, but interestingly I’m also getting a relatively strong raisin-y note at the back of my palate. It’s not as strong as the one in 52teas’ Essense of Assam, but it’s very very clearly there, especially if I slurp a little.

I’ve never noticed that in Assams before, but now I’m wondering if I’ve stumbled upon some sort of typical flavour for the type. Like the cocoa note in Fujians. Interesting.

All of this is of course completely drowned out and ruined by the addition of milk, but that’s okay given the fact that this is for work. We are not concentrating on flavour here, we just want some tea to drink. :)

All in all I’m quite pleased with this one. I’m not sure if this is the Perfect Assam for me either, but it’s definitely a pleasant tea. I did like the 52teas Assam a little better for the stronger raisin note, but this would be an excellent alternative.

Backlog from last night.
Had a killer headache and was a bit restless at 11. (The rain is getting on my nerves)Then I found this in my cupboard – gooddie!

It’s… It’s sweet and soothing. Can’t really tell you all the flavors because of the blend. Because it is a Blend with a biiiiig B. Green tea meet herbal tea meet rooibos. I acually felt my body unwinding after a half cup of this, so it works.

They should call it SUPERTEA

A green Earl Grey with Jasmine!
Awesome!

The leafs are nice… Very even in size and colors.
A spoon of dry leafs smells very much of Earl Grey, but I can’t detect the jasmine in the dry leafs. THEN after steeping the weirdest thing happened. The smell of EG is all gone and is now replaced by … (drumroll) … Jasmine!

It also taste very much of jasmine. In fact the jasmineflavor is so much in-your-face it drowns all the other other flavors. This is so unlike Perchs blend it leaves me slightly confused. They usually blends to perfection, and this is far from perfect. Somehow I like it anyway. As a jasmine tea it’s actually decent, and CHEAP, so if I ever run dry of jasmine tea I would go to this.

By the way, the coloring of this tea is also weird. Green with a brown tint.
Oh, Perch – I found a flaw of you today but it’s so good that I forgive you!
(P.S Long live the Queen and all her dogs)

… I got into the kitchen and found my teachest raided.
Two used bags had been left to dry and rot on top of it – I wonder if someone is trying to piss me off intentionaly, but I think it’s just some poor absentminded parttimers who don’t know that the tea is PRIVATE.

sigh In truth I am just very upset to find that the only tea left was the green rhubarb.
It’s creamy, sweet and green – and soo very not what I need at the moment.

As for the tea… well. It’s good.

…Strawberry and green tea.
I always get the UGH feeling when those two meet in a mug. They kind of clash. Both ingredients has a bitterness to it. Combined they are just to much…

But I couldn’t help myself when the sweetest ekspedient let me have a whiff of this. I HAD TO HAVE IT!!!! I don’t need to drink it; Just throwing into my closet is fine. Just having it in my home like a perfume – I needed to buy it.

It’s bitter but it’s not that bad. Maybe if I steep it for a shorter time and cool it down…?
Then maybe… Just maybe, it could turn out to be one of my fave!

Hello Steepsterias ;)
Long time no see! I had to go to Denmark for some checkups in Copenhagen.
This, sadly, means I didn’t drink any tea for ages. But I did think of tea, and all of you,
when I went on a shopping spree. I am now the happy owner of … a lot of tea :P

This is one of the teas I bought i Perchs teashop.
If you ever visit Copenhagen, you should really try stopping by their adorable little shop.
I just love how tiny and cute it is! And the service is just great <3

Love the name of this tea “White dreams”.
It taste of banana and melon. Lovely and sweet! I have to try it iced!

Much gratitude to ANGRBODA for sending me this tea. I have been a fan of the Queen of Denmark for decades—since she was a young girl with her lovely parents and her two younger sisters. I was, therefore thrilled to try the tea that she drinks expecting a intelligent and feminine blend.

The aroma of the dry tea is magnificent: it’s like stepping into an exquisite flower shoppe. The floral scent is multifarious. The tea itself is like a fairly strong Earl Grey with added floral oomph.

What a pleasure!